It was sweet, sweet, sweet victory for Team RRWN. Literally. Since Nora had gotten three knockouts in their match, Ruby had let her choose lunch, and her selection had been 100% accurate to stereotype. With every empty plate that piled up in front of Nora, the poor old shopkeeper's face turned increasingly pale. In hindsight, offering all-you-can-eat pancakes for 5 Lien had not been the smartest business decision. At least he'd picked his location well. The little food stand sat smack-dab in the middle of a city park, surrounded by carnival games, vendors selling deep-fried everything, and assorted other Festival activities. Amity Colosseum floated directly overhead; its shadow cast some welcome shade on this oddly sunny autumn day.

Nora looked up. "Whew, that's kind of scary, huh? Looks like it might fall on our heads any second!" She shoved three pancakes into her mouth at once to prove how scared she was. "Yum..."

"Don't be ridiculous." Weiss sighed. She pointed at the bottom of Amity, where a massive dark-colored crystal hung. "See that? That is a crystal of high-purity Gravity Dust. One of the largest ever mined. So it won't fall, you see?" she stated, as if it were perfectly logical that some weird rock could hold that monster in the air. "It's the same thing that keeps Atlas up."

"Oh, right. And...you people live there? Willingly?" Looking suddenly disturbed, Nora reached for the bottle of maple syrup. "Geez, and I thought I was the crazy one!" She began raising the bottle to her mouth, before Ren grabbed her wrist and firmly shook his head no. Chastened, Nora settled for dumping her glass of water onto the ground and filling it with syrup instead.

Weiss averted her gaze in mild disgust. "It's been floating for seventy years, Nora, and we haven't crashed into Mantle yet."

"Yet." Nora muttered darkly. Weiss bristled indignantly and launched into a spiel about the superiority of Atlesian Dust science, which Ruby tuned out. Today was a good day. Too good to worry about giant floating things suddenly dropping from the sky and killing everyone. She'd just led her team to victory on international television, and that kind of, maybe, seemed like a big deal. How many people had just watched them beat Team SSSN—thousands, millions? Were they famous now? At the very least, could they get some actual fans for their second round match? Early signs were promising; Ruby caught sight of a little girl, walking around the fairgrounds with her mother, pointing their way with an excited grin. The girl first mimed firing a rifle, then mimed swinging an imaginary hammer around. Aww! Ruby had rarely felt cooler. It was nice to know they were inspiring the next generation to...uh, set boats on fire and brutally beat people with hammers...

Oh man, she really hoped Team SSSN were all right.

"RUBYYYYY!" Yang's voice blared at the volume of a foghorn. Before Ruby could react, her sister had put her in a headlock with one arm, and was messing up her hair with the other. "Ahhh! You guys were so cool out there!"

The little girl's expression turned to one of knowing pity. Ruby felt her coolness levels draining by the second.

"NOOOOO!" Neptune screamed, blue eyes popping out of their sockets. "Get it away from me! Get it the hell away from me!"

Sun looked at the ice pack in his hand, then back at his partner. The rest of them had gotten away with bumps and bruises, but that charged-up hammer blow had left poor Neptune in a sorry state. The right half of his face, where he'd smacked into the Hard-Light barrier, was the color of a grape, and he was covered in enough bandages to pass for a mummy in an ancient Vacuan pyramid. "Bro. Relax. It's only—"

"I know what it is!" Neptune propped himself up on one elbow, glaring daggers at the bag of frozen water. "You think you can trick me, dressing it up all solid and cubical like that? I won't be betrayed again!" Sun, growing tired of his theatrics, decided to just shove the ice pack onto Neptune's face and be done with it. Neptune thrashed feebly under its cold, damp touch. "AHHHH—" Sun clapped a hand over his mouth. "—mmmmmff..."

"Shut up, dude." Sun told him. "Now be a good boy and hold still, okay? You need to get that swelling down!"

Scarlet shook his head in mingled pity and disgust. "What he needs is a bloody therapist."

Hmm. These were some good pancakes. A tad more uncouth than the lunch fare Weiss usually preferred (low on nutrients and high on corn syrup) but it hit the spot nonetheless. Fighting was hungry work. A few feet away, Yang continued to publicly embarrass Ruby, while Nora had ceased her prophecies of doom and begun extolling the virtues of getting electrocuted. Yeah, she was going to stay out of that. The rest of Team SJBY rolled up shortly after. To Weiss's relief (and, maybe, maybe, ever so slight envy), her own sibling wasn't nearly as enthusiastic as Ruby's. "So you won." Sable grunted. "That's good."

Her mind translated that into Sable-speak for 'congratulations', more or less. She gave him a carefully calibrated thank-you nod—a 'I-don't-need-your-validation-but-thanks-anyways' nod, to be more precise. "Of course." she said aloud. "Did you expect anything less?"

"Not really. I mean, it was sort inevitable after you rolled two water biomes." His mouth turned faintly upwards. "I did worry a bit when you got hit by that coconut, though. Try dodging next time."

Weiss eye-rolled at the reminder of her publicly televised fruiting, although in the grand scheme of things, she supposed it wasn't too bad. She doubted it would be long remembered, in contrast to the far greater indignities that had befallen Team SSSN. Still, Jaune popped up over Sable's shoulder to give his entirely unsolicited reassurances. "Hey, I think you did great, it was really cool how you froze the—"

"I wasn't asking you." she snapped. The blond boy flinched at the chill in her voice, which made her feel vaguely guilty. "But, um, thanks anyways...?"

Sable lightly shoved his partner away with one hand. "Private conversation, Jaune. And never make that pun again." Jaune mumbled that he hadn't even been trying to pun, then shuffled off awkwardly to talk to Ren instead. "Gods, you sound like Winter." Weiss said once he had left. "I'll bet you she mentions the coconut too."

"Oh, I can imagine." Sable cleared his throat, put his hands behind his back, and put on his best impression of their elder sister's stern tones. "Weiss. I did not raise you just so you could be laid low by a flying piece of fruit. It ought to have taken no more than 1% of your power to vanquish that monkeyish buffoon and his entire team—"

Weiss felt it would be impolite to laugh; it took a moderate amount of willpower to suppress the urge. "Come on, she wouldn't—well, not to that extreme."

"Maybe not to you." Sable grumbled. He rubbed the back of his head, no doubt recalling its many painful encounters with Winter's open palm. "But if I don't...screw it, better win first and worry about that later, huh?"

Weiss wondered if he was feeling some nerves about his own fight later. Of course her brother would sooner cut off an arm than confess to anything of the sort, but she had her suspicions. They were facing a team from Atlas, of all places, and Team RRWN had already won decisively, so the pressure would be on. "I'm sure—" she said, before her Scroll ringtone interrupted. She reluctantly checked the caller ID, already pretty certain who it was. Yep. Father again. She moved her thumb towards the 'decline' button...right as Sable leaned over to peek curiously at the screen. "What the hell?" he exclaimed, much too loudly for her taste. "Why is he calling you?"

Weiss hastily made a shushing gesture. "How should I know?" she whispered. "And excuse me, it's my Scroll, can you not?" The Scroll kept ringing in her hand, and Sable kept glaring at it as if it were some slimy creature that had crawled out of the shower drain. "Tell him to get lost, Weiss!" he suggested.

Oh, yes, brilliant. Why hadn't anyone else thought to simply march up to Jacques Schnee, and tell him to stop being so horrible? That, in a nutshell, was exactly why she was heiress, and Sable would never be. Their father was no idiot. He was perfectly aware of what his children thought of him, and he could tolerate them venting those feelings...to an extent. There were subtle lines between what could be overlooked—like, say, 'accidentally' missing a Scroll call or two—and what merited retribution. Sable, semi-feral gremlin child that he was, had crossed those lines a few too many times to retain Father's favor. Not that he'd ever had much of it to lose. Unlike her. "You tell him." she said sourly, then immediately realized her mistake. "Wait, don't actually—"

Too late. Her Scroll had already been snatched from her hand, and Sable was putting it to his ear. He took a deep breath. "Well. Hello—" he began, then lowered the Scroll, looking disappointed and relieved at the same time. "He hung up. Coward."

"Um. What the heck was that?" Ruby asked. Weiss looked over to find most of the table now staring at them, in various degrees of curiosity and concern. Oh dear. Yang, of all people, seemed most disturbed by what had happened. "Was that...you know?" she muttered at Sable, receiving a curt nod in reply. "Geez, you weren't kidding."

Weiss got up from her seat and headed for an empty-looking part of the fairgrounds; Sable took the hint and followed. "Excuse us. Personal matter." she said briefly, as if that explained everything. "Nora, don't you dare eat my food." The twins walked until they reached a conveniently placed tree, a safe distance away from their friends. There was nothing especially private about that tree, to be honest, but it felt wrong to hold this sort of conversation out in an open field. "So what the hell was that about?" Sable questioned.

"I told you, no idea." If it was something really important, Weiss figured Father would've had Klein call instead. It was probably another half-baked offer to lure her back to Atlas—10% increase to her allowance and a new pony, something of that nature (she didn't even like horses, not that Father ever bothered to learn). "He started calling over the weekend, but...hey, do you mind giving that back?" Sable blinked and realized he was still holding her Scroll, which he duly returned. "But I haven't answered, not once. So if you're worried about me cutting some kind of secret deal, don't be." She felt slightly offended that he would even think that. "I'm not giving in, not after we came this far—"

"I know! I'm not brain-dead!" And now Sable sounded offended she would think he would think that. "Just...tell me next time he pulls this shit, all right, and we'll deal with it. Together. I mean, we're...um..." he waved his hands around, trying to think of the appropriate phrase.

"Family?" Weiss supplied.

"Not saying much, but close enough." Sable said drily. He wasn't wrong. Family was a complicated word where Schnees were concerned, as varied as box of frozen chocolates. A yoke around her neck, a living ghost, a virtual stranger, a guiding light...and whatever the hell Sable was. 'Nuisance' was what she would've said when they were young and innocent (or just young, in his case); it was still sort of true, but a lot else had happened since. Mother had sunk to the bottom of a bottle, Winter had left, they'd acquired matching scars—that wasn't a figure of speech; they'd literally had their faces sliced open and it had really hurt—

Someone's Scroll went off. Not again, she thought in exasperation, before realizing that it was a message tone rather than a call, and that it wasn't her Scroll. As Sable fished it out of his pocket, she took the liberty of peeking at the screen as well. Turnabout was fair play.

ALERT: Your Schnee Dust Company credit card ending in *237 has been disabled

"Gods damn it!"

Ouch. Just for saying 'hello'? Father must've been in a bad mood today. Perhaps a mine was short of their production quota, or perhaps the White Fang had executed another random board member. "Maybe leave the politics to me next time." Weiss suggested. "And don't worry. About the Lien, I mean. I can, um, lend you some. If you want."

On the bright side, nobody called her for the rest of the day.

Guns loaded. Dust refilled. Swords sharpened. Shields polished. Flex levels optimal. Clear hearts, full eyes, can't lose, or however it went. Down in the bowels of the arena, the roar of the crowd was reduced to a low rumble, a bit like that of a freight train. Thankfully, the tunnel they walked down seemed devoid of bombs and walking skeletons and absentee mothers. "We're gonna be on TV, guys. Would it kill you to smile?" Yang cajoled. Blake's face stayed resolutely dour; Sable had simmered down to his usual grumpiness levels after the lunchtime incident, but no further. Meh. She supposed the whole dark and edgy aesthetic appealed to a certain crowd too. "And you, uh, try not to look like you're about to puke."

Jaune swallowed hard, and tried to rearrange his face into a more dignified form. "I hear imagining the audience naked helps." Yang suggested, then thought about who was in said audience and instantly regretted it. "On second thought, don't."

Jaune shuddered. "Yeah, no. I mean, my family might be watching this!"

"Here we go." Sable said grimly. They stepped out of the tunnel, and onto Amity Colosseum's grand stage.

Meanwhile, in Mistral

A young woman lounged on her living room couch, watching TV with a bowl of chips in her lap. The first day of the Vytal Festival was a worldwide public holiday, and while many citizens of Argus had left their homes to party, Terra Cotta-Arc (neé Cotta) was one for more down-to-earth pleasures. It was implied in her name, after all. "Saphron? Come back, it's starting!" She leaned forwards and adjusted her red-rimmed glasses. "Hey! Isn't that your brother?"

"What?!" A blonde woman ran into the room, cradling a baby boy in her arms. "Holy shi—itake mushrooms, you're right! It's Jaune! Look, Adrian, that's your uncle!" she cooed. Little Adrian babbled excitedly, pointing at the boy on TV who looked so much like his mom. "So he made it at Beacon after all, huh?" she said with a proud smile. "And dang! Three cute girls for teammates! I'm kind of jealous—" Terra raised an eyebrow. "—I mean, happy for him." she corrected.

It was a long way from the arena's edge to the center platform. Their opponents, Team FNKI of Atlas, entered from the opposite side, resulting in an awkward bit where everyone either politely avoided eye contact or stared straight ahead without blinking (no points for guessing who chose what). Yang gave their opposite numbers a quick once-over. In the back was a beefy blue-haired boy with some impressive pauldrons. What looked like pair of of blue ribbons streamed behind him; on second glance, she realized those were part of his hair. Next came a slimmer boy clad in white. Between the glasses, the form-fitting suit that left his chest bare, and the bladed whip on his hip, she got a real 'nerdy dominatrix' vibe. A sharp-dressed, dark-skinned boy sporting sunglasses and a fedora (his neck was thankfully free of beards) walked out in front. He clutched what appeared to be a large trumpet (what?). Last was a rather scantily clad (not that Yang would judge) faunus girl. Her bushy hair and the tail sticking out of her butt were the same pinkish-orange color. Rather than walk like a normal person, she zig-zagged across the field on roller blades, leaving a rainbow trail behind (again, what?).

"Okay, so we're dealing with a brawler..." Sable said, pointing out each of them in turn. "...a stealth type, a speed type, a...uh, a guy with a trumpet..."

"Hey there!" As the teams drew near, said guy-with-a-trumpet waved genially at them. "Nice to meet you all. The name's Flynt, Flynt Coal—"

"Wait, Flynt Coal?" Jaune interrupted. "Like the X-Ray and Vav character?"

Flynt looked mildly annoyed. "Thanks. Never heard that one before." He turned towards Sable. "And you must be—"

"Look, I'm trying to plan how to beat you right now. Drop the friendly act." Sable snapped. He gestured at Amity's giant scoreboard. "My name's up there, if you care so much." Indeed, all eight of their names were listed. Flynt was Team FNKI's leader, followed by Neon Katt (the presumably-cat faunus), Kobalt Zink (blue man), and Ivori Pyrite (whip boy).

Yang elbowed Sable in the ribs. "Seriously?" she hissed. Flynt's smile turned upside-down on the spot. "Oh. You know what's going on here, don't you?" he said, all traces of warmth gone from his voice. "Well, glad you remember. I didn't really want to play nice with you anyways."

Sable elbowed Yang right back. "See? I knew it!" he said smugly. "Hold on, remember what now?"

"Huh? I already told you, I'm Flynt Coal!" Flynt brandished his trumpet, tapping the vaguely V-shaped emblem on the bell. "Son of Nathaniel Coal, owner of Old King Coal's Dust and Dust Accessories?"

"Never heard of it, and I don't give a damn who your father is." Sable said bluntly.

Flynt's jaw fell open. He made a series of choking noises halfway between surprise and rage. "You don't—what? So you were just being a dick?!" He pointed dramatically at Sable, as if fingering a murderer in a police lineup. "Well, know why you haven't? Because your dad ran mine out of business!"

Ohhhhh no. Yang got a strong feeling of impending doom, as if watching a bus bearing down on a pedestrian with their headphones on. She didn't even need to see Sable's face to anticipate the fountain of pure vinegar that was about to pour forth. "Oh, so that's how it is!" he said mockingly, raising an arm to join in on the dramatic point-off. "You think if you beat me, you'll avenge daddy?"

Judging from Flynt's expression, that comment had hit every nerve in his body. "Bastard!" he spat. Next thing she knew, the two leaders were nose-to-nose in the middle of the starting platform, screaming insults at each other to whistles and jeers from the crowd. Shit, this was getting ugly. Yang hurried forward with Jaune a few steps behind—whether to back Sable up or to stop him, she wasn't sure. Yes, she had a decent idea why being lumped with his dad had pissed him off so badly, but it would be a pretty bad look if he just gave Flynt the ol' Cardin treatment in front of thousands of witnesses. On the other side, Kobalt and Ivori likewise ran up to their leader, while Neon spun in place with a gleeful grin, chanting 'fight'.

"Ahem! Teams SJBY and FNKI!" Professor Port's voice boomed. "I appreciate your enthusiasm, but the tournament rules require you to refrain from violence until the match officially begins. So, erm, try to contain yourselves, all right?"

At his announcement, Sable and Flynt stepped back, but continued to glare hatefully at each other. "Tch. Whatever." Flynt said. He turned on his heel, flanked by a teammate on either side. "You weren't wrong, though. I will win. For Dad and everyone else your stupid company's hurt."

"Well, I'm going to win for me!" Sable shouted after him. Yang and Jaune took the opportunity to grab him by the arms, and firmly steer him back to their starting positions. "And—and my team! I don't need any other bullshit reasons!"

"Leave it, Icy-Hot." Yang told him. "We'll beat his ass soon enough." Off to the side, the biome selectors started spinning. The first one stopped on a picture of a volcano; a field of igneous rock, studded with orange Dust crystals, replaced the field on Team FNKI's side. Magma bubbled through cracks and pits and erupted upwards in fiery pillars.

"Y-yeah, calm down. We need you, like, making plans and stuff." Jaune added nervously.

"I am calm." Sable insisted through gritted teeth. The second biome selector stopped on a crumbling building, and a run-down urban landscape (rather disturbingly similar to Mountain Glenn) rose up in their half of the arena. "The plan? We kill these losers, that's the plan!"

Yang rolled her eyes. "Pretty sure that would get us DQ'ed, but okay." Oobleck counted down from three, and shouted for them to begin. Now, Team SJBY did actually have a rough battle plan besides 'murder everyone.' The idea was for Sable and herself to partner up and cause as much chaos as possible—punches, explosions, exploding punches, you name it. Meanwhile, Jaune would find the enemy's primary close-range fighter and stall them out one-on-one, and Blake would sneak around amid the ruckus, ganking people all ninja-like. That plan lasted all of five milliseconds, or the approximate time it took Flynt to put his trumpet to his mouth and answer the question of what it did. Something that looked like a sideways tornado spouted out and—

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

All four of them were suddenly caught up in man-made wind tunnel, struggling to stand upright and half-deafened by trumpet 'music'. Sable hastily made a large black glyph on the ground to steady them. "The hell is this?" Yang shouted. She and Blake both opened fire, but in complete defiance of physics, the sound waves were somehow strong enough to blow their bullets off course. "This is bullshit!" Neon charged down the tunnel at them, using her teammate's attack to boost her speed. Jaune twisted Crocea Mors to cover them, but her rollerblades bounced off the shield so hard he was knocked flat on his butt, held in place by naught but a giant snowflake. The rainbow faunus shot past them into the urban biome. The other two FNKI members closed in from the sides, and Flynt was still blowing. Gods damn it, how much lung capacity did he have?

"Yang! Help me aim!" Sable yelled. He was wrestling with his sword, the weapon spinning about like a weather vane in high wind. Do you even lift, bro? She grabbed his skinny wrists and forcefully yanked them into place. A neat-looking ring of tiny snowflakes formed around the sword's tip, and then a thick beam of pale blue light fired out. It somehow went straight up the cone of sound, completely undeflected, and hit Flynt square in the gut, blasting him backwards into the lava biome. The pressure let up instantly. Thank gods, she could move properly again! She lunged at the nearest opponent (Ivori), forcing the white-haired boy back. Sable, however, took off running away from them, towards where Flynt had landed. "Wait, what are you doing?!" Yang called out. "Could use some help here!"

"You want him to do that again?" Sable called back. "I'm trusting you guys, okay? Don't blow this!"

"Hey, it's that thing from the docks!" In the stands, Ruby jumped excitedly to her feet. "How did it even get through? It looked way slower than a bullet!"

"It's simple." Weiss stated, as if it were self-evident that trumpets beat guns but lost to lasers. "All he did was use a glyph to focus Hard-Light Dust into a concentrated beam. Activated Hard-Light Dust travels at significantly sub-c velocities but still has frequencies in the visible-light spectrum on the order of hundreds of terahertz, which is far too high to be deflected by sound waves."

Ruby's silver eyes went crossed trying to process all that. "Um...what?"

Nora shrugged. "It's science."

With both leaders occupied, it was every fighter for themselves. Blake ran past Jaune and Kobalt going at it on the center platform. More accurately, Kobalt was punching at Jaune, and Jaune was doing his best impression of a tortoise. Hopefully the Great Wall of Arc could hold for a while. Harsh as it sounded, subtracting them both from the equation was probably a net win for Team SJBY. Blake followed Yang in pursuing Ivori, who was backing up into the urban biome. The boy whipped his...well, his whip back and forth so fast that even Yang's shotgun shells were knocked aside. That brought back memories of a certain whip-wielding chameleon faunus she'd once known...she hadn't thought about Ilia in months...and now was not the time to start, she reminded herself. It was going to be awkward enough when she quit Beacon in a few weeks. Tanking their tournament run in round one because she was distracted would only make things worse.

Shaking her head clear, she dashed aggressively in at Ivori. As she'd hoped, he cracked his whip, only to suddenly find it stuck in a life-sized ice sculpture. The real Blake stood a few feet back, ejecting the spent Dust vial from Gambol Shroud. Now deprived of his weapon, Ivori's eyes went wide as a grinning Yang charged him. But before she could punch him into next week, a rainbow shot out of a nearby drainpipe and crashed into her. Taken by surprise, Yang went tumbling down a street and through a wall. "Yeet!" The rainbow streak zoomed after her, shouting an obnoxious battle cry. There went her fellow cat faunus...Neon Katt. Ugh. Blake wasn't sure whether the name or the spelling offended her more. In Neon's defense, it wasn't like she had chosen that surname, horribly stereotypical though it was—the bell and collar she wore around her neck was another matter, like seriously what the fuck—Blake was just going to stop thinking about this.

"Thanks, Neon." Ivori gasped. He tugged hard on his frozen whip, grunting with effort. Blake took the chance to close in and managed to land a few strikes, but his skinny arms must've been stronger than they looked, for it didn't take long for him to pull his weapon free. Quite spectacularly at that: the force of his last tug shattered the ice clone, showering Blake in her own frozen body parts. The sight of her severed head rolling on the ground was more than a little disturbing. She beat a hasty retreat, jumping and ducking away from the whip as if it were a particularly painful jump rope. Damn, perhaps she should've badgered Sable for a second vial of Ice Dust. He was good for that, if nothing else. She'd never gotten to test the Dust aspect of her Semblance much in the White Fang, tight on resources as they were, and it was sort of fun having a steady supply of the stuff to play with...so long as she didn't think about the underpaid faunus laborers who'd probably mined it, of course.

Yang didn't seem to be having much joy either. Blake's four ears picked up a great deal of catty laughter and annoyed grumbling from down the street. "You're too slow!" Neon taunted. There was the dull sound of a blunt weapon hitting flesh. "Pfft! You fight like a cow!"

"How the hell does a cow fight?" Yang wondered. It involved a great deal of blood and dismemberment in Blake's experience, though technically that was more of a bull. "Ow!"

"Good question." Neon seemed stumped. She went briefly quiet before thinking up her next 'clever' comment. "Um...your hair is stupid!"

"What the fuck did you say about my hair?"

Blake had heard enough. Using a regular clone to distract Ivori, she turned and ran towards her partner. "Yang! Switch with me!" Yang seemed ready to argue, but shook her head and disengaged, firing off shotgun blasts to cover her retreat. "Totally had her." she mumbled unconvincingly as their paths crossed.

"Smell ya later, blondie!" Neon catcalled. "And hel-lo! fresh meat!" She winked at Blake, spinning a pair of nunchucks in her hand, before pulling her rainbow skater trick again. However, this time she'd find her opponent's literally catlike reflexes a match for her own. The nunchuck hit nothing but clone, and the real Blake kicked her in the knee as she passed by. Neon fell sideways with a yelp, but caught herself with one hand and cartwheeled back onto her feet (or wheels, rather). "Woof! Close one!" She stuck out her tongue, then skated away up a conveniently placed ramp. "Well, catch me if you can!"

For an encore, she did a grind on a conveniently placed rail, jumped over to a conveniently placed fire escape, and climbed up to the roof of a conveniently placed building. Really, this whole urban biome was awfully convenient for her. Weren't those rollerblades incredibly overspecialized? What would she do if they rolled a forest biome, or if, you know, she had to go hunt Grimm in the wilderness like Huntresses were supposed to? Even so, it wasn't too hard for Blake to keep up. No self-respecting cat faunus needed fancy rainbow boots to climb high places. The so-called building was little more than a skeleton, and the 'roof' both girls balanced on was merely a thin metal beam four stories off the ground. Neon looked back at her, eyebrow raised. "Oh, you made it! Not bad." she said. "For a human." Blake didn't dignify that with a response. The two of them faced each other down from opposite ends of the beam, preparing to charge like knights at a joust. "Quiet one, huh?" Neon doggedly tried to keep the one-sided banter going. "You, uh, your bow looks stupid!"

"What?!" Blake hissed. On instinct, the crypto-faunus put a hand to her precious hair accessory. Neon's grin widened. "Yeah! Tacky as hell!" she taunted. "I mean, hello, I thought I was the cat faunus here?" Blake felt her blood pressure rising. "Cat girls with ears is a cliché, anyways! Look, isn't this way cooler?" She skated down the beam, pink tail wagging. Stay cool, stay cool. "Those would be some messed-up ears, anyways! Too small!"

Oh, that was it! Her ears were of perfectly adequate size! And ear size didn't matter anyways! "No they're not—" she began angrily, before literally shoving a fist into her mouth to shut herself up. Shit! In her distraction, she missed the stray nunchuck slipping past her guard. Neon proceeded to literally whoop her butt, and sent her falling off the side of the building.

Well, this was embarrassing.

"What's the matter, never seen Hard-Light Dust before?" Sable fired a second, smaller beam at Flynt, but the trumpeter proved a quick study. This time, he simply crouched and let the laser blast the rocks behind him. That was the problem with Hard-Light beams; they packed a punch, but were (ironically) quite slow and burned Dust like there was no tomorrow. The cyan vial in his sword was already empty. "No wonder your dad went out of business!" All right, maybe that had been a little uncalled for. But in any case, Flynt had started it, so he had no one to blame but himself.

Flynt's expression grew downright murderous. He stepped behind one of the many lava pits that dotted the field. When the pit erupted, he blew his trumpet into the orange geyser, and launched a glob of molten rock towards Sable at high speed. "Don't ever talk—" he said angrily, lowering the instrument from his lips. Sable spun up a black glyph, which blocked the red-hot tennis ball and reflected it back to its sender. Flynt had cut his rant short to blow it aside. "—about my dad again!" he finished.

"Then don't bring up mine!" Sable snapped back. Talk about a hypocrite. He would've been perfectly happy to beat his enemies senseless and leave their families out of it, like a civilized Huntsman, but no, Flynt insisted on dredging up all this nonsense. Experimentally, he launched a few more fireballs, but all were likewise blown away. The enemy leader didn't even bother moving his feet, which Sable found oddly irritating. Was he lazy, or simply that confident in his defenses? Whatever the case, he'd just have to show Flynt that he wasn't the only one who could blow (nothing wrong with that phrasing, nope). Sable spun his sword's Dust chamber over to the seldom-used light green vial. A miniature tornado of Wind Dust whipped up, about ten feet tall. It hovered over a lava pit for a few seconds; the white funnel cloud turned bright orange as it vacuumed up the contents. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he sent the resulting firestorm spinning downfield. Flynt countered with another trumpet blast, but the tornado had enough mass and velocity that it merely slowed down rather than veer off course. Emboldened, Sable pumped in more Dust, and the fiery death vortex began slowly but surely forcing its way up the cone of sound. "Burn!" he shouted.

Flynt still didn't budge an inch from his spot...well, make that Flynts? Before Sable's very eyes, his enemy seemed to split into a set of identical quadruplets distinguished only by the color of their ties and hat bands, each with a trumpet of its own. He briefly thought they were mere decoys like Blake's clones, but subsequent events proved him very wrong. The convocation of Flynts blew their instruments in unison. Four distinctly colored waveforms came out, and—against all laws of acoustics—combined into one massive psychedelic-hued funnel that blasted the tornado back.

Back at him.

"What the hell?!"

What the hell is that? Yang wondered. Mind you, the what was actually pretty clear. The thing approaching from the other side of the arena looked an awful lot like a tornado. 'How the hell is that' was the real question. Considering the tornado wasn't attached to a trumpet and seemed to be made of fire, she decided it was probably Sable's fault and went back to the grind. Punch and shoot. Punch and shoot. Yang's fighting style might lack the elegance of her partner's acrobatics or the versatility of her leader's glyphs, but it worked. Ivori danced aside from every blow, but that was fine. Back at Signal, plenty of kids had thought they could outsmart the big dumb dragon with some cheeky 200 IQ dodge strats. Problem was, dodging a punch or two was easy; fifty or so in a row, not so much. And the first hit usually led to a second, a third, and so on, until they were lying on the ground wondering where their teeth had gone. The whip lashed her on the arms. That was fine too. Not to sound like a masochist, but pain literally made her stronger. Her Semblance was like playing rock-paper-scissors and throwing rock every time, until her rock got powerful enough to rip through paper and smash other rocks to bits.

The tornado kept moving. It crossed the center platform, and started carving a merry path through the urban biome, close enough that Yang's hair rippled in the breeze. With a muffled crunching sound, it demolished a run-down children's playground; a few sad plastic duck toys got sucked into the vortex. Hmm. That...that gave her an idea—also a headache from thinking so hard, but hey, an idea! The memory of Blake lying on a cafeteria floor, dizzy and tangled in sausages, came to mind. The next time Ivori swung his whip, she put up her arms and, like Ruby had on the day of the food fight, grasped her opponent's weapon firmly with both hands. Well, not quite that gracefully—it was more like she awkwardly pinned the whip between her arms and her body and ow ow ow the stupid thing had blades on it and this really fucking stung—but at least she had him where she wanted.

Yang shifted her weight and spun. "Wha—AHH!" Ivori was yanked clean off his feet, like a fisherman who'd unexpectedly hooked a Leviathan on the line. So, she didn't actually know if this next part of the plan would work; her only reference was an ancient video game where you had to grab the final boss by the tail and spin him around. Ivori's bare chest scraped against the ground for a very painful-looking moment, but Yang put some elbow grease into her spin and got him airborne. At this point, the rational thing for him to do was let go of the whip. But he hesitated for whatever reason (to be fair, giving up one's weapon went against every instinct a Huntsman had), and that cost him. She marked one full circle, two, three, building up speed the whole time, then let go. "So long!" she whooped (tactfully cutting out the rest of the taunt). Ivori's screams diminished in volume as he went flying away...right into the tornado. Hell yes! It was nice to know that video games were realistic after all.

A few seconds later, the funnel cloud reached the edge of the arena and broke apart on impact with the Hard-Light shields. A flailing humanoid shape fell down and out of sight, trailing flames behind. "Oooohhh!" Port bellowed with obvious relish. "FATALITY!"

"That, er, that's a figure of speech. I assure you he's still alive." Oobleck clarified. "Can someone go check on him?"

That had been close. Too close. As the tornado noises faded away, Sable did his best to expunge that whole incident from his memory. So much for out-blowing Flynt. Had he reacted a fraction of a second slower, he would've been blowing on himself instead. Thankfully, he'd been able to call on a secret weapon that had been passed down the Schnee family for generations, and get out of the way. No, not the glyphs, his legs—long, and generally useful for moving around on. Flynt's own pair(s) still didn't move. All four of him stopped blowing and turned to look at Sable. They didn't say a word, but the arch of their eyebrows and the smirk on their lips made the the message abundantly clear.

What now, bitch?

Fair question. Sable doubted he could combine his remaining Dust into anything strong enough to overcome the quadruple sonic attack, and the prospect of getting caught up in that monster was unpleasant, to say the least. Two possible options came to mind. Plan A: use his legs some more and get out of here, and Plan B: 'get closer, I want to hit him with my sword.'

Sable's choice would have surprised no one who knew him. He was already switching over to Lightning Dust. It was the fifth type he'd used in barely two minutes of battle; his spinning hand was getting a real workout. A time dilation glyph activated, the world slowed to a crawl, and Sable ran. Thirty feet away. The Flynts put the trumpets back to their mouths. Twenty-five feet. He zigged to the right, and the multi-colored tunnel of pain blasted by on the left. Twenty. The clones turned in unison, rotating the attack back towards him. Fifteen. Ten. He threw himself to the ground and rolled left; this close in, the funnel was narrow enough that it passed overhead, ruffling his hair. He reminded himself the copy with the blue tie was the original. Five. He leapt forwards, Schwarzfeuer (still nothing wrong with that name!) clutched in a two-handed grip. Zero...

Right as time dilation wore off, the bastard sword slashed Flynt from hip to shoulder. He stumbled a few steps back, hissing in pain. Perhaps it was a mite sadistic, but Sable couldn't help but smile at the sound. Finally! A hit, a hit, a palpable hit! The three copies faded away, and Sable's grin only widened. As he'd thought, it took too much concentration to maintain those clones while under direct attack. He followed up with a series of vicious swings at Flynt's head, determined to not give him any respite. The other boy didn't even have time to start playing his trumpet lest he be decapitated. He raised his arms and weapon in an attempt to shield himself, but come on, a sword versus a musical instrument? The blade sliced into the bare flesh of his forearm, with the satisfying sensation of metal cutting into Aura. Flynt gritted his teeth, a bead of sweat running down his brow. "That all you got?" Sable sneered. It was kind of sad how the guy clearly had no clue what to do in melee combat. Seriously, he could at least try to, you know, move away from the person who was in the process of amputating his arm? His sunglasses had slipped down his nose, and their eyes briefly met. To Sable's slight unease, Flynt's brown eyes were hard and sharp and...well, flinty, without an ounce of fear.

"Killer Quartet." he growled.

Two dark shapes spawned instantly, one on either side of Flynt. All three of them, one real and two fake, kneed Sable in the stomach as one. He doubled over, gasping for breath—gods damn it, he didn't have time to breathe, he needed to keep attacking! He forced himself upright just in time to see Flynt flanked by two fully formed copies of himself, trumpets ready to blow—

Fuck.

With apologies to Blake, clone Semblances were dumb and stupid and Sable hated them. He'd experienced Flynt's sonic attack before, but getting hit with the multi-shot at point-blank range was a totally different experience. It was the difference between walking into a stiff breeze, and taking one of Yang's punch barrages to the face. The sheer noise deafened him immediately; there was nothing in both ears besides a ringing sound and intense pain. He also couldn't see, but that was only because of the rainbow-colored sound waves blocking his vision. And the world was spinning, spinning...oh gods, if this went on much longer he was going to pull a Jaune and lose his lunch all over Amity...thankfully, after two seconds that felt like two hours, he was released from Flynt's impromptu trumpet recital. Right atop a cluster of crunchy and unpleasantly sharp Fire Dust crystals. Ow. The arena still seemed to be tilting back and forth, and despite his brain's insistent commands to get up already, his legs had forgotten which way up was.

Sword, then. Where was his sword? He spotted the familiar hilt resting a foot from his left hand. Before he could reach for it, though, a white shoe came down on his fingers, none too gently. He felt his bones grinding against each other. Again, ow. He needed to come up with Plan C, fast. Admittedly, without a weapon his options were limited, but this shitty hand of cards still had one ace hidden in it. That glyph...it had only worked once before, but he felt like today would make two. It had to. This wasn't some low-stakes training session anymore. This was back to the wall, do or die, like in the tunnels of Mountain Glenn—well, not exactly die, but 'face humiliating defeat on international TV' was just as unappealing. He rummaged around the depths of his soul like a man looking for his car keys, in search of that elusive feeling...

"You know, you almost had me." Flynt panted from above. "My Killer Quartet, it doesn't usually work under pressure like that. But you know why you lost? Because you pissed me off—"

"SHUT UP!" Sable roared. He actually had no idea what Flynt was saying, still being mostly deaf, but he assumed it was something that would make him mad. Deep inside, he felt the light of his soul burning, and the spirits of dead enemies being dragged screaming from the netherworld to do his bidding, and a bunch of other poetic nonsense. Yes. Yes! YES! A glyph unlike any other flared up, halfway between his and Flynt's faces. It still took the basic shape of a snowflake, but its radial branches looked to be made out of bones rather than ice, and its perimeter was lined by many tiny grinning skulls. His sisters would've probably called it 'vulgar' or 'edgy', but to him, the sight was nothing less than beautiful. "DIE!" Eyes wide, Flynt braced himself for whatever eldritch abomination was about to spew forth to rend him limb from limb. The summoning glyph pulsed brightly, and...

...collapsed upon itself, fizzling out like a deflating balloon.

what

What

WHAT

He felt the ghosts of his ancestors looking down on him (or maybe up at him) in shame. The crowd's groans of disappointment-slash-sympathy were audible even through his busted eardrums. Hell, even Flynt looked a little let down by the anticlimax. He mouthed what was no doubt some patronizing comment as he raised his trumpet for a final blow—

Fuck it. Plan D. Sable lashed out with his free right arm. Now, as he would grudgingly admit, his unarmed combat was hardly at Yang's level. Under normal circumstances, a punch from him would barely faze someone with Aura. The broken Dust shards clenched in his hand, though, that was a different story. It occurred to him that he was about to violate every Dust safety rule in the book. Well, it was a bit late to worry about that. The Dust begin glowing orange in his fist, primed to explode the moment it made contact with Flynt...

...right between the legs.

KABOOM!

"Well, I have no idea what that glyph was, but it looked quite nasty! A shame it didn't—OHHHH!" Port exclaimed. His next words were nearly drowned out by thunderous boos. "Oh, a classic! Like I always say, when all else fails punch them in the—"

"Thank you, Peter." Oobleck cut in. "Perhaps a bit more, er, pragmatic than we usually see here, but entirely within the rules, so long as your opponent's Aura is above fifteen percent..." The boos continued unabated.

Weiss put her face in her hands. She had a sudden feeling that rehabilitating their family's reputation would take longer than she'd thought.

From her rooftop, Neon scanned the ground below for her opponent (blissfully ignorant of the tornado tearing things up in the background). "Aha—wait, really? Really? That's so obviously a decoy, stupid!" 'Blake' was standing perfectly still, in the middle of the street with no cover whatsoever, and also had her back turned. "I'm insulted! Just 'cause I act goofy doesn't mean I'm a total dumb-dumb, you know?" she said. "Or is it because I'm a faunus? That's racist—"

Maybe not a total dumb-dumb, Blake thought, but not the brightest kitten in the litter either. Neon had been so busy getting offended over the first clone, that she hadn't noticed a second one being planted right below her. Retreating to a safe distance, Blake pumped a bullet into the clone to activate the Fire Dust infused within. She couldn't help but press her thumb and knuckle together like pushing a detonator, even though it was completely unnecessary. The resulting explosion wiped out a couple important-looking support pillars, and the whole structure proceeded to cave in like a house of cards. Clearly the Amity Colosseum props did not conform to construction codes. She'd kind of expected to stop blowing up buildings after she quit the White Fang, but as with many other things, turned out she couldn't leave it all behind. That was the second one this semester!

Even above the din of things falling down and going boom, Neon's shrill scream rang loud and clear. Blake dashed back into the blast zone. Her dazed-looking fellow faunus lay half-buried under assorted rubble, straining to shift a slab of concrete off her legs. Eager to stop her from escaping, Blake launched forwards off a clone. Neon managed to free one leg and twisted away, but Blake dove at full stretch and managed to close her hands around the other girl's elbow—or at least, that was what she'd aimed for. The appendage she actually ended up grabbing was curiously thin, flexible, soft...and furry.

Oh, this was awkward.

"YEEEOW!"

"I am so sorry." Blake whimpered. She really was, too, albeit not quite sorry enough to let go. Keeping one hand on Neon's tail for leverage, she threw herself on top of the other girl and began pummeling her with Gambol Shroud. "I swear I was only trying to pin you. I didn't mean to grab your animal part!" She wasn't sure whether Neon believed her, since she only yelled 'ow' in reply. Blake was dimly aware of a buzzer sounding, and the crowd booing. She'd rarely felt worse about winning a fight. "Trust me, I'm not racist." she said lamely to Neon's limp form. "My—uh, some of my best friends are cat faunus..."

Back up in the stands, Team CRDL had practically fallen out of their seats laughing. Considering their own wretched performance earlier that day (Sky's face still bore the prominent imprint of a certain mute midget's boot) it was rather hypocritical of them, but laugh they did.

With one exception. Cardin Winchester himself sat perfectly still, a haunted expression on his face. Whether consciously or not, both hands had drifted to cover his groin.

Just like training, Jaune told himself, just like training. Right now he was desperately trying to not get punched to death, which, in fairness, was how every third training session went. The only differences were that his assailant had blue hair and not blonde, and that Kobalt thankfully did not have shotguns strapped to his wrists. Jaune still felt some butterflies about the massive audience, but consoled himself with the thought that no one would be watching him. Why would they? His whole shield strategy must be awful for TV ratings. Punch. Clang. And Kobalt's fists-only approach wasn't the most exciting either. Punch. Clang. The blue-haired boy pounded on Crocea Mors with all the tenacity and emotional range of a battering ram. He fought more cautiously than Yang did, Jaune had noticed. His hits weren't as hard, but his form was spotless. Not once did he overcommit and leave holes in his defense. Punch. Clang. Jaune rolled with the punches, shifting his weight and stepping back as needed. Over the past few minutes, their fight had slowly moved from the center platform into the lava biome. Both boys found themselves having to watch their footwork around the cracks and fiery pits. Gods, it was like the Beacon Dance all over again. Now, as then, seventeen years of experience with seven sisters served him well. Happy feet. Happy feet...

In the distance, there was the familiar sound of a Dust explosion, followed by an unfamiliar voice screaming. "Flynt?" Kobalt muttered, looking concerned for the first time. He slammed both fists hard against Crocea Mors before running off towards the noise. Jaune nearly fell backwards into a hole, but after a moment he regained his balance (again, thank you sisters) and chased after. The first interesting thing they saw was a loose sword bouncing on the ground. It rolled to a stop next to a cluster of lava pits; moments later, its owner came limping after it. And wow, Sable had definitely seen better days. Aside from his unsteady gait, the right sleeve of his jacket was literally on fire, and he was currently trying to beat it out. Even his hair was a mess, like he'd stuck his face right next to a jet engine.

Kobalt broke into a sprint, fist cocked back. In Jaune's semi-trained, semi-professional opinion, this was not good. His partner was clearly in rough shape, short his weapon, and—to make matters worse—seemed totally unaware of the tall, bulky brawler bearing down on him, as if he'd gone suddenly deaf or something. Jaune's running speed was about the same as Kobalt's but he lagged several feet behind. If only he had a gun—!

"AAAAHHH!" Jaune couldn't think of a creative battle cry, so he opted to scream at the top of his lungs instead. Kobalt instinctively looked back, only to see Jaune fling his shield like a giant metal Frisbee (it was no Crescent Rose, but it was the closest thing to a ranged attack he could muster). The blue-haired boy stepped aside, but had to break stride to do so; in that fraction of a second, Jaune closed the gap. Nearly two hundred pounds of armor and flesh crashed into Kobalt, mere steps away from Sable's back. He finally took notice of them, turning back in surprise as the pair toppled over...right on top of the lava pits.

Oh, this was going to hurt. That was all he had time to think before the pits erupted, engulfing him and Kobalt in flames. The sensation was as exquisitely horrible as he'd imagined. It reminded him of the time he'd put his hand on the stove when he was five, except all over his body. But soon enough the geyser subsided, leaving them only lightly flambéed. Kobalt rolled over, groaning, and hauled himself out of the pits onto safer ground. His body shimmered with deep blue Aura, indicating he was damaged but not out.

Do it again.

The idea was insane, and if Jaune had taken time to think about all the implications, he would most certainly have chickened out. He did not take time. Without hesitating, he grabbed Kobalt by the pigtails and dragged him back into the pits. "What are you doing—" Kobalt yelped, speaking for the first and only time, before another eruption consumed them.

Funnily, it didn't feel quite so bad the second time.

"JAUNE!" Ruby shrieked, eyes wide with concern. "What the he—heck was that?!"

"Absolute lunacy." Weiss muttered. Poor Jaune. It had only taken one year with Sable, Yang and Blake to drive the impressionable young man off the deep end. Though considering the way he'd entered Beacon, his sanity had been rather dubious to begin with.

Either way, pulling such a borderline suicidal stunt to win a friendly competition was ridiculous and Weiss couldn't imagine herself doing such a thing. Ever.

"Oh, double kill!" Port cried ("Double knockout!" Oobleck hastily corrected). The TV cameras panned over Jaune and Kobalt; both boys lay still, smoking faintly. But then Jaune's right hand twitched, and he pushed himself up onto his elbows and knees. "I stand corrected! Jaune Arc remains in the game, ladies and gentlemen! My goodness, that boy has a lot of Aura!"

Saphron exhaled deeply. She carefully removed the baby from her lap, got up off the coach, and faceplanted right into the floor. "Thank gods." she mumbled into the carpet. "I'm going to kill that idiot..."

Terra rolled her eyes. "I'll get the wine."

Saphron gave her a thumbs-up. "Thanks babe."

As Jaune staggered to his feet, he gave his partner a thumbs-up and a slightly pained smile. Sable had retrieved his sword at some point in the chaos, and was staring open-mouthed at the blond boy. "Hey." Jaune choked out. "Got your back."

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!" Sable shouted. "I CAN'T—" There was a faint popping sound, and he promptly lowered his voice. "Never mind, eardrums just grew back. You crazy bastard, you!" He clapped Jaune on the shoulder. Despite the harsh words, the grin on his face told another story. "I can't believe you did that!"

"Uh, thanks." Jaune said, his cheeks faintly pink (perhaps from the heat of the lava, or perhaps not). "Are you...you know.. okay?"

Sable scowled. "I had it handled." Even Jaune seemed a bit skeptical of that. "Look, I actually set myself on fire. All part of the plan—well, kind of—the other guy got it way worse—let's just end this, all right?!" He grabbed Jaune by the arm and dragged him off. They found Flynt sitting wedged between two rocks, smoke rising from his pants and an expression of extreme discomfort on his face. Still, when he saw them approaching he quickly snatched up his trumpet and summoned his clones. "What, scared to come alone?" he jeered. "A few more steps, and you'll be in my range again. Think you can get another lucky shot?"

Sable shook his head. "No. We won't be needing any more luck." Flynt looked confused, so he pointed at the scoreboard to elaborate. "Look at our Aura levels, idiot."

Flynt: 22%/Neon: OUT/Kobalt: OUT/Ivori: OUT

Sable: 19%/Jaune: 25%/Blake: 46%/Yang: 40%

"What up, boys?" Right on cue, Yang appeared at the edge of the lava biome, with Blake on her heels. "We came to save you!" With a bit of shouting and pointing from Sable, Team SJBY arranged themselves in a rough circle around Flynt, like wolves around an injured deer. "So, Flynt. Think you can blow in four different directions at once?" Sable said coolly.

Judging by the way Flynt looked nervously between the four of them, he could not. "Damn it!" he cursed. "You—did you plan all this, Schnee?!"

Sable nodded. "Yes. The entire thing." That was a slight exaggeration, but he figured it would annoy Flynt the most. "Team? Get him."

"My pleasure." Yang cracked her knuckles, causing her hair and eyes to light up. "Round two, trumpet boy!"

As they soon discovered, when her Semblance was on Yang could just power straight through Flynt's quadruple attack, so things wrapped up in short order.

It was finally over. The fight had only lasted about five minutes in total, but it felt like weeks since Team SJBY had entered the arena. The winners were taking a well-deserved breather on Amity's center platform. The lava and urban biomes had sunk back into the floor, and the audience had largely left to take bathroom breaks and buy popcorn and whatnot ahead of the next match. "Can't believe they booed us." Jaune grumbled. The crowd had reacted to their victory in rather mixed fashion, to say the least. "Seems rude..."

"Bunch of sheep." Sable scoffed. "Slice someone up with a sword and nobody bats an eye, but light his crotch on fire and everyone loses their minds."

Yang snorted with laughter. "Seriously, again? What do you have against people's genitals?"

"Purely tactical!" Sable insisted. "Watch the replay, you'll understand. It was the only viable move I had!"

"Right, he did a real number on you, huh?" Yang glanced up at the Aura meters again. "Well, good thing I showed up in time." She grinned teasingly at her leader. "You know, it's not supposed to be the dragon saving the princess—"

"Shut up!"

"Hey, Schnee." someone interrupted. To their surprise, Flynt Coal was hobbling towards them, his voice hoarse from blowing his trumpet so much. "Can we talk?" Sable glared suspiciously at at the FNKI leader, but shrugged and got up to follow him. He figured that in Flynt's current state, he could easily beat him up if he tried anything funny. "Just wanted to say...you were kind of right." Flynt muttered. "It was stupid of me. Thinking I could change the world just by winning in the tournament. A fight's only a fight. It doesn't mean squat outside of that—"

"You're just saying that because you lost, aren't you?" Sable said acidly.

"Fuck you." Flynt hissed. "Okay, maybe, but it's still true. To be honest, before this..." He averted his eyes, sticking his hands awkwardly in his pockets. "...part of me felt a little guilty. For hating you because of your dad, I mean. Like, we'd never even met. I didn't know if you were horrible like him or..." he trailed off.

"And now?" Sable asked, curious in spite of himself. Had their fight somehow convinced Flynt of his non-horribleness? If so, how the hell? Normally, yelling insults at people, trying to stab them, and blowing up their private parts with Fire Dust did little to improve their opinion of him, but Huntsmen could be strange like that.

Flynt glared at him. "Now? Well, now I think you're your own unique kind of horrible, and I feel a lot better about hating you. So, uh, thanks for that."

Sable blinked a few times. "You know what, I'll take it." he finally said. "See you around, Flynt." He turned to rejoin his own team, not once looking back. "How'd it go?" Jaune asked anxiously. "I mean, he's not dead, so I guess it went okay...?"

"Surprisingly okay, yes." Sable replied. His Scroll buzzed for the second time that day. He checked it, half-hoping his credit card had been unfrozen, but it was a message from the school instead.

Dear Mr. Schnee: Congratulations on your team's tournament victory. Winning against higher year opposition is a diffcult feat, and one you can be rightly proud of.

Also, please see me in my office next Monday (October 24) at 7 PM for detention and remedial lessons on professional Huntsman conduct.

- Goodwitch

Gods damn it.

tl;dr: rich boy beats up some black kid his family drove into poverty (our hero, ladies and gentlemen)

So, uh, it's been a while. Over a year since Chapter 1...and almost 2 months since the last chapter, and this barely even progresses the plot (not that this fic has much of an original plot). I may have crammed too many things into that fight. The urge to list out every single thing that seems to make no sense and try justifying them is very strong, but I'm resisting it because the A/N would be longer than the chapter otherwise. Also, a lot of Sable in this one. I always get a bit nervous about that (then again, if you're the sort who hates OCs you probably didn't read 28 chapters in). Hopefully our boi didn't seem too OP; if he does, I'm blaming RT for inventing a Semblance that has like 6 different effects, not to mention all the stuff Dust does on its own.

me: *comes up with some ridiculous application of Dust/glyphs*

also me: that's bullshit but I believe it

Oh, and Kobalt and Ivori get to appear 4 volumes early. Yay for them...or maybe not, considering what happened.